Issues run deep in the fight against electricity theft

Electricity theft in South Africa is an ongoing challenge and takes many forms. Not only are there many incidences of residents in un-electrified areas stealing power through illegal connections, but a significant number of households and businesses with formal reticulation are also taking what they can without paying for it. Looking at the electrical nightmare that is the Zandspruit informal settlement in Johannesburg, you might think that, if an area such as this could be connected to the grid formally, electricity theft in the area would surely decline. However, after a recent tour to the Chaneng Mining Village near Rustenburg, North West Province, I can report that the issues run far deeper than the need for formal reticulation.

I recently went on a media tour with Eskom’s North West Operating Unit to see how they manage electricity theft in the province. At the Eskom Distribution offices in Rustenburg, it was explained that, by taking note of the units of electricity distributed in relation to the units paid for, the utility can identify “hot spots” where investigation into electricity theft is needed.

After a brief presentation on electricity theft statistics, the tour moved on to the electricity theft hot spot of Chaneng Village, where we could see how this problem is managed.

Expecting a tangled mess of live wires like I see every day when passing Zandspruit en route to work, I was surprised when Chaneng turned out to be a very clean, quiet settlement with untampered power cables running throughout. This is not the dangerous situation I had imagined. A different kind of electricity theft was being shown to me here: meter tampering.

Meter tampering

To have an electricity meter in the first place means there must be some level of formal electrification in the area, which also implies that the people living there have safe, easy access to an electrical connection.

Up until this point, I had always argued that people would steal electricity if there was no other way to get it – a very naive thought indeed. Many residents of Chaneng Village have formal access to electricity but are stealing it regardless.

This is a trend that can be seen in other parts of the world too. According to the Energy Collective Report of 2013, “Electricity theft goes global”, the US loses approximately $6-billion a year due to electricity theft, and the United Kingdom loses £300-million. The report also states that electricity is the third most stolen commodity in the world after vehicles and credit card information.

For people earning in the lower income brackets, electricity bills are likely to take up a large portion of their disposable income, if not all of it. In other words, the bill could be too much to bear. On the other hand, the fine for meter tampering is a whopping R6000. However, if you thought that this hefty measure would discourage electricity theft, you’d be wrong in most cases.

It is conceivable that many people consider this a small risk to take in exchange for long periods of free electricity, and some may even pay the fine. But in an area like Chaneng Village, where the average annual household income is around R29 400, the fine is too large to pay for most perpetrators and teams sent to collect these fines are continuously paid off, either out of pity or out of greed.

One Eskom official admitted that even sending two separate teams to collect the fines in the hopes of preventing or prosecuting bribery doesn’t work – the team that goes first simply pays off the team that comes after, and so the corruption continues.

A resident we interviewed on our tour said the fine she received for meter tampering did not even make her blink, and neither did being disconnected. For her and many others, there are easy ways around these “inconveniences”.

Eskom official disconnects the Chaneng village resident who was found to have tampered with her meter.

According to Zandspruit resident and DA representative Funzela Ngobeni, informal “electrical contractors” in areas where electricity theft is common are not hard to find, and they accept a fee of roughly R200 in exchange for reconnection.

Illegal connections vs formal electrification

When it comes to formally electrifying townships that would otherwise do it themselves, utilities and municipalities are “doomed if they do, doomed if they don’t”.

Having an electrical connection does not make you rich and it does not make you ethical – and it definitely doesn’t mean that the service provider will get any return on infrastructure investments.

With this in mind, it’s a wonder that the City of Johannesburg is going ahead with its multi-million rand electrification programme which has seen settlements such as Thembilehle near Lenasia, Lawley Station, and Protea South getting a hybrid mix of solar power and gas stoves.

Despite promises of such an electrification project beginning in July this year in Zandspruit, Johannesburg, the informal settlement remains an electrical nightmare. The illegal electricity connections that were removed unannounced in April by City Power, Eskom and the SAPS have returned worse than before. Cables strung across the road from street lights to dwellings are once again the norm down Beyers Naude Drive between Johan and Peter Roads and, in one case, the cables are so heavy that one street pole is on the brink of collapse – by no means a safe situation.

Cutting off power in the area isn’t an option either as homes, farms and businesses surrounding the township would be disconnected unfairly.

The only option left is to provide formal electricity, but if this won’t stop electricity theft either, what will?

Promotion of safe and ethical practices

Eskom’s answer to this question is Operation Khanyisa – a campaign promoting the legal, safe and wise use of electricity. The campaign has two main components relating to electricity theft: the loss of life due to electrocution from informal electricity connections, and the billions of rand municipalities and Eskom lose every year to electricity theft.

Operation Khanyisa has received over 17 000 tip-offs since 2010 via an anonymous tip-off system, enabling Eskom to conduct more targeted investigations and to recover millions from perpetrators. The campaign has seen 120 arrests, 87 court convictions, and recovered over R490-million.

This, however, is remedial action and the heart of the issue remains: corruption and unethical behaviour.

To try and curb this somewhat, Operation Khanyisa also employs young adults and teens in rural areas to go from door to door to promote safe and legal electricity use.

The fact that stealing electricity is illegal may not resonate with many of the desperate and the poor, but the campaign hopes that the reality of young children being electrocuted will bear a greater impact on peoples’ decision to steal electricity. However, this approach too has its limitations.

It’s not just the poor who steal

In many cases, electricity theft is committed in a way that poses very little immediate harm. According to Operation Khanyisa marketing project manager Madelline Kadzinga, highly visible forms of illegal connections and meter tampering lead to the misinterpretation that electricity theft takes place mostly in townships and informal settlements.

In fact, electricity theft by large power users is far more sophisticated, less hazardous, and more discreet, and prevalent than expected. According to Eskom, businesses, industry, commerce and agriculture (BICA) account for 54% of electricity theft. With the prevalence of bribery and corruption, recovering revenue from these industries is a trial.

A dose of ethics among the BICA power users and utility officials would make a significant and tangible difference to revenue recovery but, for now, the best Operation Khanyisa can do is to rely on tip-offs, campaigning and hot spot identification to fight the rising tide of lost revenue.

What can we expect?

Electricity theft is committed in many forms and is done for many different reasons. The fight against it is ambitious and often fruitless. Whether poor, desperate, apathetic, or greedy, there is no justification for breaking the law – and often no consequences either.

For those who cannot afford electricity, this is perhaps a blessing, as one can hardly expect the impoverished to sacrifice their income for the sake of a clear conscience – especially if poor service provision has caused them to feel frustrated, neglected, and powerless in the first place. The issue will not be resolved until these people are uplifted and are on equal footing.

However, the BICA large power users are a target area where there is much potential for revenue recovery. The tip-off system can only do so much, and it is among these power users that a conscience and self-governance would make a large difference. With corruption and criminal activity eating away at South Africa, what more can be done?